The Idea of Progress eBook

[Footnote: The ascendency of the idea of Progress
at this epoch may be further illustrated by E. Pelletan’s
Profession de foi du dix-neuvieme siecle, 1852 (4th
ed., 1857), where Progress is described as the general
law of the universe; and by Jean Reynaud’s Philosophie
religieuse: Terre et ciel (3rd ed., 1858), a religious
but not orthodox book, which acclaims the “sovran
principle of perfectibility” (cp. p. 138).
I may refer also to the rhetorical pages of E. Vacherot
on the Doctrine du progres, printed (as part of an
essay on the Philosophy of History) in his Essais de
philosophie critique (1864).]

The author was then convinced that history has a goal,
and that mankind tends perpetually, though in an oscillating
line, towards a more perfect state, through the growing
dominion of reason over instinct and caprice.
He takes the French Revolution as the critical moment
in which humanity first came to know itself. That
revolution was the first attempt of man to take the
reins into his own hands. All that went before
we may call, with Owen, the irrational period of human
existence.

We have now come to a point at which we must choose
between two faiths. If we despair of reason,
we may find a refuge from utter scepticism in a belief
in the external authority of the Roman Church.
If we trust reason, we must accept the march of the
human mind and justify the modern spirit. And
it can be justified only by proving that it is a necessary
step towards perfection. Renan affirmed his belief
in the second alternative, and felt confident that
science—­including philology, on the human
bearings of which he enlarged,—­philosophy,
and art would ultimately enable men to realise an
ideal civilisation, in which all would be equal.
The state, he said, is the machine of Progress, and
the Socialists are right in formulating the problem
which man has to solve, though their solution is a
bad one. For individual liberty, which socialism
would seriously limit, is a definite conquest, and
ought to be preserved inviolate.

Renan wrote this work in 1848 and 1849, but did not
publish it at the time. He gave it to the world
forty years later. Those forty years had robbed
him of his early optimism. He continues to believe
that the unfortunate conditions of our race might be
ameliorated by science, but he denounces the view
that men can ever be equal. Inequality is written
in nature; it is not only a necessary consequence
of liberty, but a necessary postulate of Progress.
There will always be a superior minority. He
criticises himself too for having fallen into the
error of Hegel, and assigned to man an unduly important
place in the universe.

[Footnote: Renan, speaking of the Socialists,
paid a high tribute to Bazard (L’Avenir de la
science, p. 104). On the other hand, he criticised
Comte severely (p. 149).